


what are you doing new year's, new year's eve

by grapehyasynth



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: AU, Café, M/M, Meet-Cute, New Year's Eve, POV David Rose, Rated T for mention of balls dropping, ish?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:55:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26148265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grapehyasynth/pseuds/grapehyasynth
Summary: David takes refuge in a tiny cafe just before midnight on New Year's Eve.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 46
Kudos: 175





	what are you doing new year's, new year's eve

**Author's Note:**

> I meant this to be softer and longer (ayoooo) but their snark really came out and also I did not want to make it longer lol.

David takes one step into the cafe and halts so abruptly the door hits him as it swings shut. 

“Oh,” he says.  _ Fuck _ , he helpfully refrains from adding. 

“Hi,” says the man behind the counter, which is a terrifying, oh, three feet away, approximately. “Can I help you?” 

“Um-” David glances around desperately. There  _ are _ chairs and things in here, but he’d been looking for a place to hide for a bit and this is  _ not _ it. “Um, sorry, no, I just - wasn’t expecting this to be so tiny? The - the windows were fogged over so I couldn’t - I thought-” 

“Huh.” The man leans both hands on top of the glass case separating them, and David thinks  _ oh god the fingerprints _ but also  _ oh damn those forearms _ . “So you’re from out of town, then?” 

“Excuse me?” 

“Well, if you’re surprised by the size of a cafe in New York City, you’re clearly not from New York. No offense.” 

“ _ Much _ offense taken,” David huffs, and he’d step closer if that didn’t bring him essentially nose to nose with this  _ very _ offensive person. “I have lived in New York City since I was  _ two _ , with the exception of a misjudged stint at boarding school upstate, which - everyone’s been there, it’s a rite of passage, but the daily horse-riding lessons didn’t agree with me.”

The man’s eyes go as round as the macarons on display below him. “Oh.” 

“Yeah. So. Used to New York sizes, thanks so much.” He bites back a comment about  _ and not just in cafes _ because as much as he thinks he’d like to see the blush this guy could produce, New Year’s Eve is the one night when hooking up with a random is just too sad. “This place is just...superlatively diminutive.” 

“Superlatively diminutive!” After the screaming hordes outside, this...  _ Patrick _ , his nametag says, feels soft, somehow, even in his enthusiasm. If a person can feel soft, in a non-tactile way. David’s probably just gone partially deaf, is all. “Wow. That’s a new one. We’ve gotten quaint, and charming, and coquettishly petite, but superlatively diminutive-”

_ Were they describing the cafe, or you?  _ “My mother raised me to wield a singular vocabulary.” 

“Whereas my mother raised me to not judge books by their covers,” Patrick volleys back. 

David tries to look offended. “Hmm. That’s something my mother definitely did  _ not _ instill in me.” 

Patrick makes a little noise of regret, shrugging as if to say  _ what can you do _ , as if his mother is even from the same species as Moira Rose. “Well, if you’ve gotten over the shock of the tight quarters, is there anything I can get for you...?” He trails off, obviously waiting for a name. 

“David,” David supplies, pointing to himself as if Patrick won’t know which  _ David _ he’s referencing. “And no, thank you, I actually just came in to use the WiFi, which is why the - what was it -  _ coquettishly petite _ dimensions of your fine establishment were a bit of an impediment. I guess I could buy one of these delightful looking...juices...” 

Patrick laughs, pushing away from the counter and grabbing a rag from a sink beside him. “Nah, that’s okay, we know what century we’re living in, we don’t mind the occasional free-loader. Sit wherever, but just a heads up that we’re closing at midnight.” 

“Sit wherever,” David echoes back to him as Patrick turns to clean something behind the counter. “That’s so generous of you.” He eyes the four chairs and the long bench by the window. “So many options! I don’t know how I’ll possibly decide.” 

“You could just try each one in turn. Leave us a Yelp review for each different chair.” 

David turns so only the frosted-over front window can see his smirk. 

They each work in silence for a few minutes - well, Patrick works and David scrolls and wonders how many blocks away Juniper and Orjan will be before they notice he’s not in the Uber. Definitely not before they hit Brooklyn. He’s only, like, 13% bitter about it. It’s quiet in this cafe, with just the hum of the little drinks refrigerator and the soft squeaks of Patrick’s shoes as he moves about his end-of-night routines. Part of David feels calmer than he has all week. 

“Not a big reveler, then?” Patrick asks, when he’s moved to the front of the cafe, wiping the tables and arranging the chairs. He’s got a black apron over the lap of his dark jeans and it’s a  _ very _ cute look. 

David quickly withdraws his elbows to allow Patrick to work. He supposes a polite person would leave and let Patrick finish, but, well. No one’s ever mistaken David for polite. “Hmm?” 

“New Year’s?” Patrick reminds him. He brushes close behind David as he reaches to bring down the window shades. “Tourists in diapers? Balls dropping? I mean-” Yes, the blush is just as satisfying as David had hoped. “I know why  _ I _ volunteered to work til close on the biggest party night in the city, but you seem...” 

David’s dying, a little, to know how Patrick was going to finish that sentence, but he doesn’t seem intent on following through. “It’s true, normally by now I’d be chest-deep in caviar and hot models desperate for anyone’s approval, but I tried something different this year, and, well.” He splays his hands out. “No offense.” 

“Much offense taken,” Patrick parrots back at him, and then he fucking  _ winks _ . The temerity. 

David tucks a smile into his cheek. 

He whiles away a few more minutes reading a few deeply boring and self-satisfied articles on ThoughtCatalog before it becomes too obvious that Patrick is about to close up for even David to ignore. It’s late enough now that if he takes the subway and walks slowly, he can arrive back at his apartment at what most people would consider an only-slightly-pathetically-early time. 

“Well,” he sighs, slipping his phone into his coat pocket and aligning his chair with the others - Patrick had done well with that; David loves an eye for detail - “This has been fun. The pleasure of your company has been as expansive as the premises of your business.” 

“Hang on a sec,” Patrick says, and David turns, expecting the rebuke of  _ you’re a real dick you know _ , but Patrick’s striding past him and shouldering the door open. “C’mere.” 

David’s whole face retreats in reaction to that proposition. “Excuse me?” 

“Just-” Patrick rolls his eyes, in what is clearly the most well-natured eye-roll ever undertaken, and David doesn’t need to ask to know that Patrick is  _ not _ originally from New York. “Come here for a second.” 

David approaches gingerly. They stand side by side, Patrick in his shirtsleeves, David in his thick black coat, a picturesque flurry of snow descending out from the grey night onto their faces and hair. 

“What are we-” 

Patrick shushes him, and David has known this man  _ five seconds _ and will  _ not _ be shushed, but then he hears it. From several blocks over, but also scattered more closely, above their heads and down the street, people are chanting the countdown. 

“ _ Six, five, four, _ ” Patrick whispers along with them. He grins up at David, who, fuck it, grins back. 

After  _ one _ , there’s an explosion of sound, and yelling, and fireworks, and drunken people bursting from their apartments onto stoops and fire escapes and the streets themselves. Laughing, Patrick squeezes back in, letting the door close after them. 

“Happy New Year, David,” he says. He  _ offers _ . That’s what it feels like. Not just a wish, but an offering. 

“Hmm,” David hums, because he’s fragile from being abandoned by his friends, and a stranger has just served him a slice of beauty he’s not sure he deserves. “Happy New Year, Patrick.” 

“Hey, uh, would you-” Patrick’s still talking as he hurries towards the back, shutting off lights, grabbing his coat from a hook outside the kitchen. “There’s a pub around the corner that’s really not bad, for Midtown. They make a mean Blooming Onion. Would you-” 

“Oof. Alcohol, fried food, debasing myself at pedestrian establishments. I could break all of my resolutions in the first ten minutes of the new year!” He’s trying to sound like a sarcastic jerk but he wants to tipsily consume fried onions with Patrick more than he wanted to do anything he did last year. 

“I would be happy to help you with that,” Patrick chuckles, and he’s only got one arm into his coat and he’s blushing again, because either he’s very bad at flirting or he is very,  _ very _ good at it. “I mean. We could, like, make a list of resolutions and then, just, break  _ all _ of them. Whatever you do after would be a success, in comparison.” 

“Well. You have sold me on that,” David announces. “Even though you  _ did _ fail to sell me on anything in your own cafe.” 

“Didn’t I mention?” Patrick asks, breezing by him and tugging the ends of David’s scarf as he passes. “You’re buying.” 

  
  
  
  



End file.
